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Subject: Re: library-ization
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From: davidw@dedasys.com (David N. Welton)
Date: 17 Oct 2002 09:59:48 -0700
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Aaron Bannert <aaron@clove.org> writes:

> On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 09:21:23AM -0700, David N. Welton wrote:
> > And I would like an HTTP tester library.  I think that if done in
> > this way, it would be versatile enough to replace ab, and it would
> > also give people the freedom to experiment with other front ends.
> > Like someting in Tk, gtk, or whatever...
 
> Ah, but that is precisely why we use XML input to control the
> behaviour of flood, so that someone can come along and write
> whatever fancy GUI app they wish and couple it only to our XMl
> schema.
 
> There is another reason why we chose XML that gives us greater
> flexibility than a library interface could ever give -- platform
> transparency. Since flood processes need not all run on the same
> machine, it is not a requirement that all machines where flood are
> running be of the same operating system or architecture. This also
> means that the GUI need not be on the same machine where the actual
> flood process is invoked.  Try doing that with a library.

It would be no problem if it were at the right level.

> One thing that might be useful would be if something like tcl were
> embedded in flood. 

And that's where you need an API.  Maybe the right approach is to not
have Flood be a library, but to have an API that lets you control a
lot of it, ala Apache.

I think I prefer the library approach personally, because it would let
one create different front ends, which would let flood be *the* apache
benchmark tool.

-- 
David N. Welton
   Consulting: http://www.dedasys.com/
     Personal: http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
Free Software: http://www.dedasys.com/freesoftware/
   Apache Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org/